Crip the Vote

[music]

COURTNEY WILLIAMS, PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: From KVMR and in partnership with FREED, this is Disability Rap.

PETER MENDOZA: Voting is really a sacred right of all of us, and people with disabilities, so they have to exercise their rights. Get involved. We don't just talk about ourselves or individuals, we have to make sure we address the needs of our broader community.

WILLIAMS: Today, a panel of guests share their lived experiences and professional expertise on voter accessibility in California.

COREY O'HAYRE: A lot of states don't do all of this. A lot of states don't have all this commitment to getting everybody access to voting like we do here in California.

WILLIAMS: That's all coming up on Disability Rap. Stay tuned.

[music]

CARL SIGMOND, CO-HOST: Welcome to Disability Rap. I'm Carl Sigmond.

Before we get into today's topic, I want to introduce FREED's new Disability Community Advocate, Alexa Guerrero. Alexa joined the team at FREED in September, bringing the wealth of knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm for disability advocacy. She actually has been on Disability Rap before as a guest, talking about her experience with cerebral palsy. She's here today as Disability Rap's new co-host. Welcome, Alexa.

ALEXA GUERRERO, CO-HOST: Thank you, Carl. It's great to be here.

SIGMOND: It's great to have you in the host seat. Now, I'll turn it over to our Production Assistant, Courtney Williams, to introduce today's topic.

WILLIAMS: It's November, and we just had a special election here in California. We're spending today's show talking about the voting process for people with disabilities, how voting is made accessible, and the importance of voting as a way to engage in the political process. We're joined by three guests. From right here in Nevada County, Corey O'Hayre is with us. Corey has been the Assistant Registrar of Voters for Nevada County since August 2023 and served as Acting Registrar of Voters from June to October of this year.

Donna Johnston is also with us. Donna is the Registrar of Voters for Sutter County. She has served in county government since 1990 and has been the Sutter County Registrar of Voters since 2008. From outside Sacramento, Peter Mendoza is with us. Peter is currently a community program specialist at the Sacramento Regional Office of the California State Council on Developmental Disabilities. He is also a member of the Sutter County Voter Accessibility Advisory Committee. Carl and Alexa spoke with Corey, Donna, and Peter on Friday.

SIGMOND: Corey, Donna, and Peter, welcome to Disability Rap. This is quite a panel of experts here. It is an honor to have all of you with us. Peter, I want to begin with you. Can you kick us off by talking about some of the challenges people with disabilities face when trying to exercise our right to vote?

MENDOZA: Sure. I'd be happy to, Carl. As a person with disability myself, I can really resonate with some of the successes and barriers in the voting process. A lot of times it might be an issue of accessibility, not being able to get to the polling place for a number of different reasons. The lack of transportation, physical access to the polling place, and also for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities not able to have voting materials in plain language is a barrier too for folks. I know when I first started voting, I've been an avid voter since I was 18, and I'll be 60 this year.

I remember one time trying to get to my polling place and realizing there was no sidewalk to the polling place, and so that was a barrier. I managed to get a ride there, but then when I got a ride there, the polling place had stairs, so I couldn't get in, and everybody else was voting. It was a big election. I had to basically send someone downstairs to get someone, a poll worker, to come up and help me fill out my ballot. This is back in the '80s, before we had accessible tax rates for voting. That was a major barrier.

Even now, things have gotten much better, but there's still barriers that we face. We still need to make sure that people with disabilities of all ages have the right to vote because voting is really the way that you participate in civic life. It's the best way to have your say. It's through the power of voting, just like everyone else who has the right to vote without disabilities.

GUERRERO: Thank you, Peter. Our next question is for Donna. Can you talk about some of the things Sutter County has done to make it easier for people with disabilities to vote?

DONNA JOHNSTON: Yes, I can. We do a number of things. One of those is we go out to look at all of our polling places, potential polling places and existing polling places, to make sure that everything is as easily accessible as possible. Even looking at the threshold of the doorways for anybody to come in, to make sure the threshold meets requirements. It's not too hard for anybody in a wheelchair or anybody who has a cane or anything like that to try to get into the location, that the push bars on the doors are accessible for everyone. We take a look at those types of things.

Even though we have location established, we always go back and revisit the location to make sure nothing's changed. Maybe that they've redone the parking lot, and maybe that ADA accessible parking spaces have moved from the last time we visited the site and took photographs and assessed the location. We're always looking for those types of things on the physical side of each location to make sure that it is as accessible as possible, that transportation needs are there as best as possible to get to the voters to be able to get to the physical location as well as the location site itself.

bThank you, Donna. Corey, I want to bring you in here. I see your head nodding as Donna was speaking. Do you want to add anything about Nevada County? Then maybe talk a little about remote accessible vote by mail?

O'HAYRE: Yes. One reason my head was nodding is because it's a running joke that Donna takes all my answers. [laughs] She's saying exactly the type of things we do here for accessible voting at a vote center. I think something important with remote access vote by mail. I came from another state, California provides this option, and some states don't, so it's a great option. We've actually had more numbers in this election for our RAVBM ballots than we have in previous elections.

One thing we did this year in our county, in the past, we'd put our RAVBM information into our voter information guide, which it still is there. We also added a card in with our ballot in our ballot packet this year, so that people could actually see the card right there that has both people requesting language access and RAVBM right there in their ballot packet so they can return that to us, or they can go online and find the RAVBM, or they can return the card to us for language facsimile ballot. We think that made a little bit of a difference, every little difference that we can make to bolster our numbers on the remote access vote by mail and make it easier for anybody that needs that, we think that's very important.

SIGMOND: Thank you, Corey. Actually, the Executive Director of FREED texted me with a picture of that RAVBM insert and was very excited to see it in her ballot. Before we go on, I don't know if Donna or Corey want to take this one, but could one of you just quickly and succinctly explain what RAVBM is, especially for listeners outside of California?

O'HAYRE: Remote access vote by mail is an option, actually, for all voters in California if they choose. Every county in the state has to provide a remote access vote by mail option on their website so that someone could go onto the website, make their choices, print out, and return the ballot to us that way so they don't have to go into a polling place or a vote center to return that or even to get their ballot.

Especially if they didn't actually get mailed their ballot, sometimes the mail doesn't work right, or sometimes we didn't do our job right. It's a nice option for people to have so that they don't have to go to a polling place or vote center and still their vote can still count. Donna, you want to add to that?

JOHNSTON: We also find that it's a great feature to offer to somebody who finds themself in the hospital unexpectedly. They can coordinate with somebody at the hospital that can help them request that, and then we can get that information to them. They can help them print that out and get the ballot back to us. It's something that we've been able to expand to the local hospitals as well, to help facilitate them getting their ballot back into us.

SIGMOND: Thank you for that. Donna, this is taking me back years when I was on the Sutter County VAAC, but I remember your county, especially, was doing good work to help people to be able to vote when they were in the hospital. Could you talk a bit about that?

JOHNSTON: Yes, I can. Thank you, Carl, for that. We do reach out to the local hospitals and some nursing facilities as well, to reach out to individuals who may have an issue either marking their ballot, we'll go out and visit them at the facilities to see if we can help them mark their ballot independently, and then we'll take it back to the office, or we'll take the ballot to the hospitals if that's the way that the person would like to vote independently. We find sometimes people would prefer to vote without a caregiver there.

They would like to make sure that their vote is recorded accurately. Maybe they don't want the caregiver to know how they want to vote, and they feel more comfortable giving us that information. We'll help facilitate that as well. We'll either work with the hospital representative to get the information from the person who's in the hospital to get their ballot issued to them. Either they will pick it up, or we will take it to the hospital directly.

In some cases, we've had folks down at Stanford. We've overnighted ballots to Stanford, for instance, verified with the voter they've received it, got it marked, got it overnighted back to us. That type of situation. We always try to work very carefully with the hospitals to make sure that everybody who's at the hospital has an opportunity to have their voice heard by getting their ballot voted and back into us.

GUERRERO: Thank you, Donna, for that wonderful answer. Now, my next question is for Peter. What are the barriers that might prevent people with disabilities from voting privately and independently?

MENDOZA: There could be a number of different barriers. For example, for people with disabilities. Myself, I'm a quadriplegic with some of the use of my extremities. One time, I did have to vote in the hospital, and it really wasn't private. We made it private as we could, but since I have to tell somebody how to mark my ballot. There wasn't a voting machine available. Sometimes we're forced to have to convey information that would not be made public to everyone else. That includes the areas of voting. Also, even though we're working to make polling places more accessible, sometimes there's a barrier, or you need assistance that you weren't aware of.

Even though the accessible voting machines are really reliable most of the time, sometimes you can get there and they may not work, or an accessible feature may not be available. You might have to request assistance, or won't be able to do it privately. California law does allow a person to bring up to two people to a polling place if you need support around voting. That is available. If everything goes correctly, you need less assistance, but sometimes there are barriers at the polling place where you have to ask for assistance.

GUERRERO: My next question is for Peter. How can disabled and disability advocates and organizations help promote voter education and engagement within the disability community?

MENDOZA: I think there are a number of ways to promote engagement with people with disabilities, both you as an individual or an agency, or a group organization. One is get involved with your local Voting Accessibility Advisory Committee in your county. Go to the meetings, become a member, and become a resource to the Department of Elections. Also, join organizations that are involved in voting. Rev Up the Vote is a wonderful national organization where you get information and get active.

Also, I'm going to give a plug to my former life working in the Independent Living Movement. There's a disability organizing network that's made up of Independent Living Center staff, including our system change coordinator here, Alexa. They do a number of initiatives around voting. Get involved with them. Talk to the people you know. Talk to the people in your life.

Voting is really a sacred right of all of us. People with disabilities, they have to exercise their right. Get involved. Get involved in policy around voting, and really talk about not just what you need to vote, but what other people in your community need to vote. To affect policy, we don't just talk about ourselves as individuals, we have to make sure we address the needs of our broader community. Make sure that everyone with a disability who wants to vote can vote.

SIGMOND: Thank you for that, Peter. What are some changes or new initiatives that you would like to see at the county or at the state level to keep the ball moving forward in making voting even more accessible for people with disabilities? Corey, I'll begin with you.

O'HAYRE: What's really important for us is something like VAACs and LAACs to help us understand and see blind spots we might have in this, so that we can see what maybe we can do moving forward to make things more accessible for everybody. I know there's been a lot of talk about websites and website accessibility. I know some people have discussed the idea of some websites aren't very friendly for certain communities. I know it's been discussed of RAVBM having to be printed out and then sent being a potential issue.

I don't know where all that's headed, but I'm always all about trying to take the next steps to make everything as accessible for every voter possible to make sure that everybody's able to vote. That's why it's so important that we hear these ideas from our VAACs and our LAACs to make sure that we are doing what the community needs. The state of California is hopefully listening to us, too.

JOHNSTON: I agree with what Corey is saying. We need to remove the barriers. Especially in RAVBM, a lot of people don't have access to a printer, or it's not as easy to print it and get the materials back to us. We have the same issue when it comes to our military and overseas folks. They're restricted in a lot of cases to fax. My goodness, who uses a fax nowadays, or has a capability of getting to a fax? I think we need to try to work-- We are always striving on our side to try to get these processes better, quicker, more efficient, less restrictive methods to make things easier for folks to vote. Hopefully, we'll get there sooner rather than later.

One of the other things I would love to see is a little more control when it comes to schools, as far as not making any last-minute changes. For instance, in this last election, normally, we were in a gym. The gym that we get is really close to the ADA parking spots. Unbeknownst to us, they moved us to the library that morning. We didn't know that. Therefore, the ADA accessible parking spots were much further away than they should have been, which, of course, presented a problem.

We do have call bells out, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's the best alternative for a voter as well. I'd like to see a little more control over the accessibility features of making sure that we can have the best location within a school. We have the ability to use a school, but not the best location in a school. I'd like to see if we can fine-tune that a little bit better than we have been able to in the past.

GUERRERO: Thank you, Donna and Corey. My next question is about VAACs. Can you please explain what a voter accessibility advisory committee is?

JOHNSTON: It's our chance to hear from you. It's our chance to hear from your community, to make our processes better. We don't know what's best for the disability community. We are not the experts. You're the experts. We need to hear from you. We need to know what your needs are and how we can best address those needs. We try our best, but our best may not be good enough. Honestly, we try to do what we can.

We have laws and so forth that we are compelled by, but we always try to balance the two and try to make things as best as we can for the voters that we serve. That's our role, and the best way to find out about it is to try to engage with us. We try to do as much outreach as we can. I'm sure we could do better in that. Hopefully, things like this podcast will help get that outreach out there. One of those avenues to do that.

We also try to get things out in our local community. Maybe, Peter, you can help us out with that since you sit on ours, get a few more folks in to engage with us. We love to have more people involved than fewer people because we don't like to make decisions on anything in a vacuum. We like to get as much input as we can when we make decisions on how to make things better for all of our voters.

O'HAYRE: To piggyback on that, the idea of VAAC has gotten us to this point. Let's think about that. All of the things we've talked about today, all of the great things we've talked about, most of those come from the ideas from VAACs going back years that have now led to this. We can just only continue to improve and move forward. Once again, a lot of states don't do all of this. A lot of states don't have all this commitment to getting everybody access to voting like we do here in California.

To continue to grow and expand those groups is very important, so we can hear more and more ideas. We try to post on our website when our next VAAC will be once we schedule it, even if that's months ahead of time. Then, of course, before we have the VAAC, we public notice that a couple weeks before we have the VAAC. We also go out into community events and things like that, but are always looking for more community events.

If anybody out there ever has good events that we can go to and promote our VAAC or LAAC, or anything, and answer any questions about voting, we would love to attend. Those are the type of things we like to do. Hopefully, that's helpful, and we continue to move forward because, once again, this doesn't happen everywhere. It's a great spot and a great place to live and a great place to vote, and we would just want to keep making it better.

MENDOZA: We're using a term that I just want to make sure that folks know. Would you explain what a LAAC is? If you wouldn't mind? I'm not so sure if our listeners are familiar with that term.

O'HAYRE: It's language accessibility advisory committee. They are different, but also, it's all about accessibility, the LAAC is focused more on language accessibility.

SIGMOND: Donna, in Sutter County, aren't they combined, or did they used to be, or am I making that up?

JOHNSTON: You are not making that up, Carl. [laughs] They were combined, and they still are combined. They have two separate agendas. You have the top of the agenda and the bottom of the agenda. We handle the topics language accessibility and voters with special needs in separate sections. We do combine them. It's to gain insight from both perspectives because sometimes there's an overflow.

For your listeners, there's also statewide, so LAACs and VAACs. They have those as well. If anybody's interested in those on the California Secretary of State's website, they do have information for those and to when they meet as well. Those are available. Years ago, in Sutter County, we did bring forward the need to have the Punjabi language recognized statewide because it was not, it was only recognized as Hindi, but we realized that there was a need here locally to have the Punjabi language recognized instead of Hindi.

We did advocate for that rather strongly, brought down some local leaders from the Punjabi community, and were able to advocate to have that done. Originally, they were saying it was okay just for Sutter County, and we said, "No, no, no, it needs to be statewide." We were able to push to get that done statewide. That's something we're pretty proud of, that we were able to get that language recognized statewide. That's the power of both a VAAC and a LAAC is to be able to do that both at the local level and at a statewide level. Corey's right, I wish other states had had what California has.

SIGMOND: Peter, as we wrap up, I want to go back to your point about advocating not only for what I might need or what you might need, but for what all people, all voters with disabilities need in order to cast our ballots privately and independently. I am reminded that one in four people in the US have a disability. We are one of the largest voting blocs. Can you end by talking about the power we have as people with disabilities in voting?

MENDOZA: People with disabilities, as Carl mentioned, are a very powerful voting bloc. We must really use that power to effect change to support not just people with disabilities, but to make the world a better place. To affect policy and make the changes that we want to see. That's different for everyone because people with disabilities come from all different aspects of life and perspectives. The key is that they're able to exercise their right to vote and participate in policy.

I want to give just a mention to some folks who face barriers with disabilities, maybe because they live in a rural area and transportation isn't really available, or they may be people who have never voted before, or who don't understand the process, or may have barriers in education and not had the same opportunities as many of us. We really have to educate to make sure our whole community has the right to vote. There's also a misunderstanding in the community that people under conservatorship, a lot of people think they can't vote. The truth is, in many cases, they can, unless that right has been simply taken away by the court.

We have a lot of work to do to educate folks, people with disabilities, about voting. A lot has been done through the passage of the ADA and other laws. We have a lot more to do. The important thing is, is that no one gets left behind and that everybody who wants to vote has the opportunity, privately and independently as much as possible. I would just ask anyone who assists anyone in voting, a family member or friend, keep that private. That is a sacred task that you're helping someone to do. Give it the respect that it deserves.

WILLIAMS: That was Peter Mendoza, community program specialist at the Sacramento Regional Office of the California State Council on Developmental Disabilities. We also heard from Donna Johnston, Registrar of Voters for Sutter County, and Corey O'Hayre, the Assistant Registrar of Voters for Nevada County.

And that does it for the show. Disability Rap is produced and edited by Carl Sigmond and me, Courtney Williams. You can go to our website, disabilityrap.org, to listen to past shows, read transcripts, and subscribe to the Disability Rap Podcast. You can also subscribe to our podcast by searching Disability Rap on any of the major podcast platforms. We're brought to you by KVMR in partnership with FREED, and were distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. For Carl Sigmond and Alexa Guerrero, I'm Courtney Williams with another edition of Disability Rap.

[music]